Talented forward group led by Crosby, McDavid should be Canada's Olympic superpower
CBC
It’s been nearly 12 years since an Olympic gold medal was placed around Sidney Crosby’s neck.
From scoring the Golden Goal in 2010 to captaining his country to the top again in 2014, it felt like only the beginning of what we’d see the star from Cole Harbour, N.S. do on an Olympic stage.
Just like that, those opportunities disappeared into thin air. NHL players didn’t play in the Olympics in 2018 due to a dispute between the league and the International Ice Hockey Federation, largely over who would foot the bill. Then, a global pandemic put the brakes on an NHL return to Beijing in 2022.
Now, at 38, Crosby is finally back on the grandest international stage, willing his way to another golden moment. That he’ll captain this team in Italy is a foregone conclusion.
“To miss them and to not know what was going to happen, and now to know that we're finally going back, that's motivation in itself,” Crosby said in an exclusive interview with CBC Olympics host Ariel Helwani earlier this year. “That's kind of on my mind the most. It's just making the most of this opportunity here.”
The three-time Stanley Cup champion with the Pittsburgh Penguins will be joined by two stars who’ve dominated in the NHL for several years, but who’ve never gotten to experience the Olympics: Nathan MacKinnon and Connor McDavid.
They form a forward group that should be Canada’s biggest strength when the team plays its first game on Feb. 12.
Like his Nova Scotia brethren, MacKinnon has lifted the Cup. McDavid has not. He’s come tantalizingly close over the past two seasons, but not close enough.
The overtime game winner at the 4 Nations Face-Off earlier this year might have been the biggest goal of McDavid’s career so far. Winning Olympic gold would cement his legacy in the sport, and finally, he’ll have a chance to do it.
“Guys like him crave that kind of pressure and crave being in that spot,” Jeff Marek, the host of The Sheet with Jeff Marek podcast on The Nation Network, said on CBC Sports’ Hockey North on Wednesday.
While McDavid scored the game winner against the United States at 4 Nations, Macklin Celebrini had to watch from home. Not this time. Celebrini will be going to Italy.
The 19-year-old star with the San Jose Sharks was only three when Crosby scored the golden goal in 2010. In Milan, they could be linemates.
Celebrini had played his way on to this team by early December, when the Canadian management group made a list of 12 forwards who were locks. GM Doug Armstrong delivered the news personally to Celebrini on Wednesday morning.
It was a full circle moment from last season, when Armstrong met Celebrini early into his rookie season ahead of a game against Armstrong’s St. Louis Blues. Celebrini wasn’t on the 4 Nations Face-Off radar then, but was still in the mix for the Olympics, the GM told him.
